Teaching strategies

The Process of
Classroom Questioning

Questioning plays a critical role in teaching. Teachers must be knowledgeable in the process of
framing questions so that they can guide student thought processes in the most skillful and
meaningful manner. This implies that teachers must design questions that will help students
attain the specific goals (that is, objectives or outcomes) of a particular lesson. Although
written questions in textbooks and examinations contribute to the learning process, most
classroom questions are verbal and teacher formulated. Questions can be critical elements for
teachers to use to stimulate student thinking (see Harvey & Goudvis, 2007; Marzano 2007;
Walsh & Sattes, 2005).

 Questioning tends to be a universal teaching strategy.
 A broad range of questioning options is open to you.
 Being systematic in the use and development of questioning tends to improve student
learning.
 By classifying questions according to a particular system, you may determine the cognitive or
affective level at which your class is working and make adjustments as needed.
 Through systematic questioning, you may determine students’ entry skill and knowledge levels
for specific content areas.
 Questions should be developed logically and sequentially.
 Students should be encouraged to ask questions.
 A written plan with key questions provides lesson structure and direction.
 Questions should be adapted to students’ levels of ability.
 Questioning techniques that encourage the widest spectrum of student participation should be
used.
 Statements rather than questions should also be used to promote student reactions.
 No single questioning strategy is applicable to all teaching situations.
Research Findings on
Questioning

An Overview of Questioning Techniques
Teachers use recitation and question-answer periods for a variety of reasons. One key purpose is
to determine what students have remembered or achieved as a consequence of some
assignment. In this regard, you are conducting a brief formative evaluation—This evaluation tells
you what points everyone knows and, equally important, which students do not know or have
misunderstood some element or concept. With this feedback, you can take corrective action
immediately. Although formative checks tend to focus on low-level questions with factual
answers, they can lead to higher-level questions that use skills in the top four categories in the
cognitive taxonomy. George W. Gagnon (2001) illustrates how a teacher can bridge concepts and
enhance student understanding with well-chosen questions. Bridging means that you or the
students connect previously learned material to the new topic or concept being taught.
Prompts such as “Think back to yesterday’s assignment” and “How might we approach this
problem from what we know?” help students to bridge.

Edit Yerushalmi and Corina Polingher (2006) observed that students often tend to repeat
mistakes, even after classroom discussions of the errors. They suggest assigning those written
statements as homework so the students analyze their errors and then discuss the analyses in a
subsequent class session. This strategy applies formative evaluation and helps promote student
understanding.
Merely asking questions does not cause students to think. If you ask a low level question, then
you can expect a low-level response (see Dillon 1982a,1982b). But your higher-level questions
invite and encourage higher levels of critical thinking in students. Higher-level or critical
thinking skills imply that there is more to learning than just knowing facts. Students can be
taught how to analyze situations, make comparisons, draw conclusions, and then make
inferences. Judging or evaluating information also promotes higher-level thinking (see Paul &
Elder, 2008).

Furthermore, it appears that if teachers systematically raise the level of their questioning,
students raise the level of their responses correspondingly (Filippone 1998). This requires a
carefully planned questioning strategy that may span several weeks of instruction (van Zee
&Minstrell 1997). Asking higher-level questions also requires an adjustment in your attitude
toward your students. As a teacher, you hold high expectations for your students. Your attitude
should be Yes, you can!
Through appropriate questioning, student curiosity is fostered (Arnone, 2003). Curiosity is an
affective dimension of learning, which means that it deals with the emotions and with
motivation. The influence of emotions cannot be discounted in student performance.

As an alternative to asking questions, making declarative statements can also stimulate student
responses, curiosity, and thinking. This technique elicits longer and more complex student
responses. There is some evidence that students’ verbal responses are of higher quality when
they respond to statements rather than to questions alone (Dillon 1990). For example, a teacher
might say, “It really doesn’t matter what tense you use when writing.” That statement
predictably will evoke a wide range of student responses. Another example might be the
statement, “Laboratory-based science instruction helps students to learn.” Keep such
statements short (about one sentence) and, when appropriate, seek comments from students.
Using declarative statements requires some practice.

Using Students’
Questions and
Summarizations

Even when using higher-level questions, it is important not to let yourself dominate the scene.
Orient your class toward giving students a chance to express their opinions and ideas and to
originate questions of their own. Some evidence shows that teachers tend to do most of the
talking and questioning. Disturbingly few students ask questions during recitations, “nor are
they encouraged to do so”. What an example of being intentionally disinviting! This is
particularly unfortunate because encouraging student questions leads to higher-level questions,
stimulates more students to interact, provides positive cognitive effects, and promotes analytic
reasoning.
Teachers need to try hard not to dominate classroom verbal interactions and thereby cause class
members to become passive and dependent on the teacher. Student passivity hardly fosters
ingenuity, creativity, or critical thinking—traits we all consider desirable. Nor is passive student
behavior appropriate for a constructivist method of teaching. Instead, the classroom should be
highly interactive, which creates an atmosphere affirming that what is taking place is of signifi-
cance for students (Wells & Arauz 2006).

Aiming for Critical and Higher-Level Thinking

If you want to stimulate critical thinking among your students, take a look at the way you use
textbooks. Be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of your textbook materials. To involve
students more, you may have to supplement the materials provided by the publisher. For
example, you might teach lessons with focused questions that require students to compare or
contrast items, persuade others, determine cause and effect, or even question the textual
presentation. These processes are crucial to developing thinking skills (see Carpenter 2003).
You can use questions to diagnose student progress, determine entry-level competence,
prescribe additional study, and enrich an area (Gibson 1998). Lelia Christenbury and Patricia P.
Kelly (1983) have discussed seven different taxonomies or hierarchies of learning that can be
used in formulating questions. One of these is Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy, and three others are
also “sequential hierarchies” with stages similar to his. Thus, for our purposes and for the sake
of uniformity, we will simply rely on using Bloom’s (1956) cognitive taxonomy as a means for
classifying questions and their responses.

Higher-level questions do not guarantee higher-level responses; they only open a very
important door to critical thinking for your students. Keep in mind the “if-then” strategy: If you
want to encourage a response at a particular level of thinking, then you must frame the question
at the appropriate intellectual level. This strategy requires concomitant and continuous decision
making and evaluation. It can be applied to all levels of instruction and with all types of
students.
Use a questioning hierarchy as a plan for your recitations and discussion. This will allow you to
structure facts, concepts, and generalizations within a framework for thinking—the hierarchy
becomes a visible blueprint for action (see Buehl 2001). Note that a questioning hierarchy can
also be used to plan declarative statements and to structure them in a hierarchical manner
to elicit higher-level student responses. You’ll find yourself asking fewer questions (see Barnette
et al. 1995).

Ways to Develop Higher-Level Thinking
 Ask higher-level questions.
 Don’t rely too heavily on a textbook.
 Frame questions appropriately.
 Use a questioning hierarchy.
 Encourage students to interact verbally in class.

Questioning Strategies
four basic questioning strategies: convergent, divergent, evaluative, and reflective
questioning. If you assign particular importance to the different types of questions
you ask, then you will need a method for verifying that you are indeed using the
desired questioning patterns. The classification scheme we present here will help
you conduct goal-specific recitation periods.

Convergent Strategy
The convergent questioning strategy focuses on a narrow objective. When using a convergent
strategy, you encourage student responses that converge, or focus, on a central theme.
Convergent questions typically elicit short responses from students and focus on the lower
levels of thinking—that is, the knowledge or comprehension levels. This does not mean that
using a convergent technique is bad per se. In many situations, you will decide that your
students need to demonstrate their knowledge of facts and specifics; in such cases, lower-level
questioning strategies are appropriate. Remember that the appropriateness of any questioning
strategy must be judged solely on the basis of its ability to fulfill your predetermined objectives
(see Crespo 2002).

So when might convergent questioning be the appropriate choice? If you use an inductive
teaching style (proceeding from a set of specific data to a student-derived conclusion), then
you will use a large proportion of convergent-type questions. Or you may wish to use short-
response questions as rapid-fire warm up exercises (for example, when you are building
vocabulary skills). Teachers in foreign language classes may use a convergent, rapid-fire pattern
to help develop students’ oral, vocabulary, and spelling skills. This technique also allows all
students to participate. The same method may be used by a science teacher to build technical
vocabulary. Thus, a biology teacher may wish to use a convergent technique for the first few
minutes of class to maximize participation and to generate constructive verbal motivation
among the students.

The convergent technique is an ideal application of “teacher-directed instruction,” or direct
instruction, in which all students in class respond in unison to teacher-asked questions.
Everyone gets to participate. A convergent questioning pattern is not an appropriate means of
stimulating thought provoking responses or classroom discussions; rather, it focuses on factual
knowledge (see Rowe 1996).
Note that these questions all meet two criteria: (1) they limit student responses to a narrow
spectrum of possible options, and (2) they are more recall-oriented than analytical.
Examples of Convergent Questions
 Under what conditions will water boil at less than 100°C?
 What helps bread dough rise?
 What’s 5 to the third power?

Divergent Strategy
Divergent questions are the opposite of convergent questions. Rather than seeking a single
focus a divergent questioning strategy is designed to evoke a wide range of student
responses. Divergent questions also elicit longer student responses. The divergent technique
is ideal for building the confidence of students with learning difficulties because divergent
questions do not always have right or wrong answers (see Beamon 1997).
Eliciting Multiple Responses If you want to elicit multiple responses, use a multiple-response
questioning technique. After asking a question, call on three or four students and then
assume a passive role in the ensuing discussion. Such a technique teaches students to
conduct a classroom recitation themselves. The multiple-response technique also sharpens
students’ listening skills.

Accepting Diverse Responses If encouraging creative responses to questions and novel solutions
to problems is your goal, then the divergent method is also appropriate. Remember, though,
that if you elicit diverse responses from students, you have a professional obligation to listen
respectfully to them. To reinforce appropriate response behavior, you must demonstrate a high
degree of acceptance for the responses of each student (van Zee & Minstrell 1997). This means
that you may not use subtle put-down tactics, regardless of how outlandish a student’s point of
view may seem (or how different from what you expected). Again, this is a great technique for
students with some learning difficulties because they get to become stars in the classroom.

Preparing Yourself and the Students When you begin to use divergent questions, you will find it
helpful to write out the questions ahead of time. Then examine them to ensure that they are
clearly stated and convey the precise meanings you intend. You probably will find your initial
class experience with divergent questions difficult or even disappointing, usually because
students are not yet oriented toward giving longer or higher-level responses (see Savage 1998).
It takes a good deal of reshaping of student behavior patterns to elicit higher level student
thinking and responses. From grade school through high school, over thousands of classroom
hours, students have been conditioned to give short, low-level responses. When you begin to
ask divergent questions, you must let your students know that the level of questions is changing
and that you want the level of their responses also to change, quite drastically. You will soon
find that students’ responses will demonstrate higher-level thinking—application, analysis, and
synthesis. They may even be prepared to conduct discussions themselves and to give longer and
more diverse written responses (see Epstein 2003).

When you inform the students about your change in questioning strategy, you should also
inform them that you expect multiple responses, with each student taking cues from other
students’ responses. For example, you might begin by stating, “Today, we are going to change
how we recite. I am going to call on three of you, and after each of you has responded, I’ll ask
three more of you to react to your classmates’ responses. Ready?” This means that, as a general
rule, you do not repeat student responses to other class members, except when a student
speaks too quickly or softly to be heard or when a statement needs some clarification. The
rationale for not repeating responses is that, if students know that the teacher will repeat the
previous response, they become conditioned to listening only for the teacher’s repetition
instead of paying close attention to their fellow student’s original words.
When using the divergent strategy, allow all students to present their responses without your
interference. This has a positive effect on the class. Teachers tend to interrupt before students
have fully explained their positions. When the teacher avoids interrupting, students realize that
their responses are important and that they must be responsive to one another.

As a result, the class’s attending behavior improves. It does little good for a teacher continually
to remind students that they are not paying attention; such negative comments only make a
class less attentive. By encouraging students to listen to one another, you encourage them to
participate in a dynamic fashion. You also encourage peer reinforcement of positive,
constructive classroom behavior.
To get the best results, your emphasis must be on systematic development of questions over an
extended time, with well-conceived, appropriate learning objectives (see Streifer 2001). Do not
expect overnight miracles. It takes weeks, even months, to incorporate these techniques into
the usual repertoire of teaching strategies. Use of divergent questions requires you to help
students locate different sources of information so that they can share a variety of viewpoints in
class. The box below lists examples of divergent questions. Note that we have adapted a few of
these from the previous list of convergent questions.

Examples of Divergent Questions
 What type of social and cultural development might have taken place if Christopher
Columbus had landed on Manhattan Island on October 12, 1492?
 What would happen in a school if it had no computers or Internet connection?
 Explain the attitude that the Romantic poets had toward nature.
 What do you think are effective methods for creating a sustainable environment?
 What kinds of evidence would you seek if you were an opponent of global
warming?
 Why was Fort Ticonderoga built where it was on Lake Champlain?
Under what conditions are First Amendment rights abridged?

Evaluative Strategy
The third questioning strategy is based on the divergent strategy, but with one added
component—evaluation. The basic difference between a divergent question and an evaluative
question is that the evaluative question has a built-in set of evaluative criteria. For example, an
evaluative question might ask why something is good or bad, why something is important, or
why one theory explains the facts better than another. When you frame an evaluative question,
emphasize the specific criteria on which students should base their judgments. As with
divergent questions, you should accept all student responses to evaluative questions.

A major component of the teacher’s role in the evaluative strategy is to help students develop a
logical basis for establishing evaluative criteria. To illustrate this, we’ll give you a classic example.
You ask a question, and a student presents a response. You next ask, “Why?” and the student
replies, “Because.” You should recognize immediately from this response that the student does
not understand how to frame a logical, consistent set of evaluative criteria. Again, you must
never use sarcasm or any other disparaging approach; instead, reinforce the student in an
environment conducive to the development of logical evaluative criteria. For example, you
might suggest a number of criteria: “What happens when someone is convicted of a crime?
What about situations of national emergency?” Provide a specific set of criteria from which
students may develop their own criteria. Some students might be intimidated if you ask “Why?”
It has been suggested that instead of asking why, ask what. For example, in an art class
discussing backgrounds, the teacher might ask, “What type of background did Charles M. Russell
usually use?” This would be more appropriate than, “Why did Charlie Russell use this
background?” This is a subtle form of shifting the burden of proof from the student to the topic
(see Dana et al. 1992).

As an introduction to the evaluative technique, you might try a joint writing session in which the
teacher and small groups of students collaboratively list criteria. Then, as you pose evaluative
questions and students make responses, you and the students can classify the evaluative
responses along a continuum ranging from “inappropriate” or “illogical” to “appropriate” or
“logically developed.” An alternative method would be to have the class develop a set of
evaluative rubrics (Eppink 2002; Jackson & Larkin 2002). Note that we have been using the term
responses, not answers. Answers carry the connotation of being final or complete. To be sure,
convergent questioning patterns may elicit such answers, but when you ask divergent and
evaluative questions, students will not be giving you definitive or absolute answers. They will be
providing responses that tend to be relative, tentative, or less than certain (see Martinello
1998).
Most student responses to evaluative questions will demonstrate a broad range of thought
when rated on a set of evaluative criteria. You can classify them according to their logical
development, internal consistency, and validity. Again, we suggest that you accept all student
responses. When apparent logical inconsistencies develop, don’t rush to bring them up. Discuss
them after the student has had an opportunity to participate in classroom discourse.

Some of the questions we previously designated as divergent have been converted now into
evaluative questions. Remember that most evaluative questions are also divergent. The one
characteristic that separates divergent questions from evaluative ones is that the latter rely
on established judgmental criteria.
Evaluative Questions
 Why is the world a better (or worse) place because of computers and the Internet?
 Why will the federal position on welfare reform affect social and moral attitudes and
behaviors?
 What reasons could be given to switch to hybrid automobiles?
 What evidence is there that the federal system of interstate highways harmed our city
environments?
 Why is global warming a critical issue?

Reflective Strategy
The newest addition to the list of questioning techniques is the reflective questioning strategy.
This strategy draws its historical perspective from the classical Socratic method of questioning
(Elder & Richard 1998). Reflective questions stimulate a wide range of student responses, as do
divergent questions. Reflective questions also have an evaluative element. The major difference
between this strategy and the other three techniques is that the goal of the reflective question
is to require your students to develop higher-order thinking: to elicit motives, make inferences,
speculate on causes, consider impact, and contemplate outcomes. Rather than asking a student
a “why” or “what” question, as with the evaluative strategy, you are trying to encourage the
student to ponder, to think of implications, to search for unintended consequences .

Stimulating Thinking Process with Reflective Questions
 Seeking motives
 Expanding a vision
 Listing implications
 Searching for unintended consequences
 Identifying issues
 Analyzing persuasive techniques
 Making unique interpretations
 Inferring values
 Challenging assumptions
 Seeking meanings

The process initiated by reflective questions can also be called critical or analytical thinking. A
teacher doesn’t bring students to this stage of intellectual development without carefully
shaping the classroom environment and instructing the students as to what the process entails.
Jim Minstrell (van Zee & Minstrell 1997) uses a technique that he calls the “reflective bounce.”
He bounces questions from the student back to the same student and others so that the student
needs to provide an expanded version of a previous response, adding another dimension. In
civics, a student might ask, “I wonder why ‘Deep Throat’ waited so long to be identified?” As
teacher, you would “bounce” that question back to the originating student and then to another.
Jamie A. McKenzie (2005) has developed a very useful Questioning Toolkit in which he discusses
17 types of questions. The following five exemplify reflective questions:
hypothetical, irreverent, probing, provocative, and unanswerable.

Maureen Boyd and Don Rubin (2006) collected data on the power of “contingent” questions.
They observed that English-language learners (ELL) reacted very positively to authentic
questions. These appear to be reflective questions that are based on common experiences or on
common thematic assignments. By focusing on key points, this type of questioning led to
extended and thoughtful student responses. We suggest using contingent questions
for students with special needs. Using reflective questions requires even more planning than
using convergent or divergent ones. We recommend that you write out a cluster of
several reflective questions that would be relevant to the content being taught and learned. In
some cases, the reflective strategy approaches a constructivist perspective; that is, the students
must construct their own meanings to the questions. You might also organize student teams to
write a few reflective questions. This approach gives you double value: Students work
cooperatively, and they have to think.

Reflective Questions
 What issues are unresolved by having security persons in our high school?
 What rationale is given to support interscholastic activities?
 What values can we infer are important in our school by examining its entry showcase?
 What impact have personal computers made on our school courses?
 What metaphors do teachers use when describing school, and what do they imply?

Appropriate Questioning Behaviors
To develop a repertoire of questioning skills, you must be aware of a wide spectrum of
techniques for eliciting appropriate responses from students. The questioning skills that follow
address specific kinds of problems that may arise in any class using questioning strategies.

Using Questioning Positively
The questioning in a recitation period, a tutorial period, or an inductive session is always based
on the assumption that some meaningful or purposeful learning activity will take place, allowing
the student to gain another learning experience. For this to happen, questions must be asked in
a positive, reinforcing manner—that is, in such a way that the student will enjoy learning and
responding. All students should receive positive reinforcement from the questions being asked
as well as for the responses elicited. Thus, questions should never be used for punitive purposes.
The teacher who asks a question to punish a student is turning a positive learning situation into
a negatively reinforcing one. The result is that the teacher not only “turns off” the learner but
also shuts down the learning process. It is extremely important to avoid doing this, especially
when working with young students or those who have learning disabilities.

Framing Questions and Using Wait Times
The basic rule for asking questions is to proceed in three steps: ask the question,
pause, and then call on a student. This rule is grounded in the psychological rationale that when
you ask a question and follow it with a short pause, all students will attend to the
communication. The nonverbal message—the pause—communicates that any student in the
class may be selected for a response, so the attention level of the class remains high. If you do
the opposite and call on a particular student before you ask a question, all the other students
may ignore the question.
To be an effective questioner, you must be able to pose clear, concise, succinct questions. Avoid
using “uhs,” false starts, uncertain pauses, and ineffective transitions between topics. All such
verbal behaviors by teachers ultimately cause student uncertainty (see Gettinger & Stoiber
1999).

Thus, the complete technique of framing a question entails asking a clear, succinct question,
pausing, and then calling on a student. You can use this technique even when you intend to
select several students to respond. Furthermore, once you and the students have mastered this
technique, you can modify the third element to a nonverbal action of simply pointing or
nodding to a student for a response. This technique becomes easy with a little practice.
Benefits of Wait Time
For the Teacher
 Less teacher talking
 Less repetition of questions
 Fewer questions per period
 More questions with multiple responses
 Fewer lower-level questions
 More probing
 Less repetition of students’ responses
 More application-level questions
 Less disciplinary action

For the Students
 Longer responses
 More student discourse and questions
 Fewer non responding students
 More student involvement in lessons
 Increased complexity of answers and improved reasoning
 More responses from slower students
 More peer interaction and fewer peer interruptions
 Less confusion
 More confidence
 Higher achievement

Wait Time 1 The time between when you first ask a question and when you call on a student is
called wait time 1. Why wait at all? There are several reasons to use the pause. First, it gives
students a chance to think about their responses to the question. This is especially important
when you ask higher level questions (Van Es 2006). Additionally, English-language learners or
students with special needs will have some time to ponder the question so that they may
respond appropriately.
Second, this pause gives you time to read students’ nonverbal cues. With some practice, you can
readily observe nonverbal signals indicating pleasure, apprehension, fright, excitement, joy, or
shame. As you become more sensitive to humanitarian considerations in the classroom, this
dimension of teaching becomes very important to gauging your students’ well-being. It also
allows you to pick up on how prepared the students are or how well they understand the
material.

Wait Time 2 After the student has given a first answer to your question, wait again. Wait time 2,
the pause after the student you have called upon has responded, is equally important because it
gives the student additional time to think or allows other students to respond as well (Rowe
1969, 1980). If the teacher waits a while to respond after the initial student response, students
will continue to respond—without prompting.
The effectiveness of wait time—even up to five seconds—has been well documented
(see Gilbertson & Bluck 2006; Stahl 1994). The box on pages 227–228 lists the benefits to both
teachers and students. However, many teachers are impatient with students when asking
questions (Rowe 1969, 1974, 1978). Studies show that the wait time between asking a question
and either answering it for the student or calling on another student is often less than one
second! Is it any wonder, then, that some students dread being called on? They fear that being
called on will bring impatience from the teacher and that they will be “in hot water” again.

It’s important to note that while wait time has no effect on student responses to lower-level
questions (Riley 1986), it has a significant effect on responses to higher-level questions. Lack of
wait time with higher-level questions can cause students to give low-level responses (Gipperlich
2006). Remember that classroom silence is not all bad—even when you are asking questions
(see Sangster 2007). So make the decision to wait—not only once, but twice, even three times,
if students are interacting. With practice, you’ll develop the art of staying silent.

Using Positive Prompting Techniques
Once you have asked a question and called on a student to respond, the student may not
answer the question the way you want him or her to, or he or she may not answer at all. When
this happens, you should prompt the student. You may do this by clarifying the question, by
eliciting a fuller response, or by eliciting additional responses from the student to allow you to
verify whether he or she comprehends the material (Dann et al. 1995). As you develop
prompting skills, you can follow many rules. However, to simplify matters, keep one rule
foremost in mind: Prompt in a positive manner.

You may have to prompt a student many
times during a questioning session to
evoke a more complete or logical
response. Always provide positive
reinforcement so that the student will be
encouraged to complete an incomplete
response or revise an incorrect one. In
many cases, a student will answer with a
partially correct response. When you hear
such a response, immediately begin to
prompt the student so that the response
can be completed, made more logical,
reexamined, or stated more appropriately.
The Instructional Strategies box on page
230 illustrates two possible prompting
techniques. Observe that, in the first
example, the teacher tries to focus the
student’s ideas. In the second example,
the student’s response is recast
to answer the question that was asked. In
both cases, the teacher is trying to use
some aspect of the student’s responses to
keep the episode positive.

Handling Incorrect Responses
No matter how skillful a teacher is at motivating students, providing adequate and relevant
instructional materials, and asking high-quality questions, one continual problem will detract
from both the intellectual and the interpersonal aspects of classroom questioning sessions—
incorrect student responses. As we discussed previously, you may use prompting techniques
when students’ responses are partially correct or stated incompletely. Prompting is an easy
technique because you can reinforce the positive aspect of a student’s response while ignoring
the negative or incomplete component. However, when a student gives a totally incorrect
response, a more complex interpersonal situation arises. First, it’s hard to reinforce positively in
such a case. But comments such as “No,” “You are way off,” or “That is incorrect” should be
avoided because they all act as negative reinforces and may reduce that student’s desire to
participate in a verbal classroom interaction. This is critical, especially with students whose first
language is not English.

Second, if you respond negatively to an incorrect student response, there is a high probability
that a ripple effect will occur (Kounin 1970). This effect describes the way in which students
who are not themselves the target of a teacher’s negative behavior are still negatively affected
by what the teacher says or does in correcting another class member. Therefore, when a student
gives an incorrect response, try to move to a neutral prompting technique rather than
responding with “No, that is not at all correct.”
How should you do this? Because this method is designed to stress the positive, you might fi rst
analyze the student’s verbal response to determine whether any portion of it can be classified
as valid, appropriate, or correct. After you make this split-second decision, you then provide
positive reinforcement or praise for the correct portion of the response. For example, if you ask
a general mathematics question and the student gives a totally incorrect answer, then you might
state, “Your response is close to the answer, so do some recalculating.” “Could you tell us how
you arrived at your answer?” or “Could you rethink your solution and take another try at it?”
These responses are neutral, not negative.

Another strategy is to rephrase the question, to remove from the student the onus for
incorrectly answering the original question. You can carefully lead the student to a correct
response with a set of convergent questions. Always avoid being sarcastic or punishing. A put-
down strategy provides negative reinforces and ultimately has unpleasant residual effects
because it causes students to ignore opportunities to respond verbally. A primary goal
of schooling is to provide a positive and stimulating environment in which learning can take
place. But learning can be blocked by insults and negative teacher responses. The student learns
nothing by humiliation—except to despise the teacher and to hate school. Verbal abuse is never
an appropriate or professional response.
When carrying out this strategy, you must be careful that nonverbal cues—such as frowning—do
not show that you are upset or angered by the incorrect response. You must maintain
congruency between your verbal and nonverbal behaviors when handling incorrect responses.

Another strategy for helping a student correct a response is to
immediately assess the type and level of question you asked and then
ask the student a similar, but less difficult, question, without making
any other comments. Always react flexibly; give students the
opportunity to show that they know some answer.
Interpersonal relationships between teachers and students are
delicate and take time to build. After you have assessed each student’s
personality type, you may find that it is appropriate to use some
negative as well as positive reinforces with certain students. It is not
uncommon for better students to clown or joke with the teacher or to
kid the teacher. When you see such situations developing, you can
predict fairly accurately how a specific student will react, and you can
then humor that student. For example, if a top-performing student
gives a response that you consider “off the wall,” then you might
comment, “Are you putting me on?” and then smile or laugh. This
diffuses those tense moments.
The Instructional Strategies box below illustrates a number of ways to
handle incorrect responses. Note that in these examples, the teacher’s
response does not criticize the student. We hope you will create an
atmosphere in your classes that is supportive—one in which students
can react freely without the fear of being wrong. (See McTighe &
Lyman 1988 for a series of “tools” that help students respond.)

How
Questioning
Can Create a
Dynamic
Learning
Environment

Promoting Multiple Responses
As noted earlier, teachers typically conduct recitation periods by sequential questioning: They
ask one student to respond, then another student to respond, and so on. For the most part, the
teacher does the talking. Few students, if any, listen carefully to their peers’ responses because
at any one time there is a closed communication circuit between two individuals: the teacher
and one student. We recommend that you avoid this closed technique and instead use multiple-
response questions, which are questions to which at least three or four students respond. The
key to increasing the number of students who respond to each question is to emphasize
divergent and evaluative questions. These types of questions allow for many different
responses. In the multiple-response technique, you ask a question, pause, and then call on
three or four students to respond.
Of course, before you use the multiple-response technique, you must carefully explain it to the
class. Also caution students that you will not repeat any student responses. Thus, students must
listen carefully to their peers’ responses so that they will not repeat them.

The multiple-response strategy also allows the teacher to speak less. It is difficult for you to be
an empirical observer of student behavior, direct a question-and-answer period, manage the
classroom, and plan for appropriate questions—all at the same time. You cannot listen and talk
simultaneously. But if you use divergent or evaluative questions coupled with the multiple
response strategy, you will have time to analyze the responses that are being given. In short, you
will be able to make a qualitative evaluation of each student’s response.
You can modify this technique by subdividing the class into teams of three, four, or five students
to add the motivating factors of small-group solidarity and identification. Once the groups are
formed, you ask a divergent or evaluative question of the class. Each group discusses it, and
then a spokesperson responds. This situation increases student-to-student verbal interaction.
(You can further facilitate students’ interaction by rearranging their desks.) Any competition that
develops within the class will be peer oriented rather than between teacher and student.
Friendly intraclassroom competition can be established by incorporating some type of game into
the lesson (see MacKenzie 2001).

By using historical picture books, Kay A. Chick (2006) has been able to motivate students to
reflect and collaborate and explore alternative viewpoints. She notes that at-risk students
participate fully in the lesson. We suggest using pictures to develop student skills in asking
questions. Teachers tend to be parsimonious with rewards. But by using this variation of the
multiple-response strategy, you can reward one group for providing the most novel responses,
another for the best responses obtained from an encyclopedia, another for the best nonverbal
responses (pictures, cartoons, posters), and another for the best multimedia presentation.
Motivational strategies like these help to make the classroom an enjoyable, creative, and
interesting place. The Instructional Strategies box on page 235 illustrates the multiple-response
technique. Notice how the teacher frames a question and then calls on three or four students to
answer it.

When you use the multiple-response technique, you also build other communication skills in
students. For example, when you start using this technique, you can ask students to write one-
sentence summaries of each response given by their peers. Think of the implications of this
simple teaching technique for improving listening skills; structuring logical discussions;
identifying the main points in an oral discourse; enabling students to classify arguments,
positions, or statements systematically; and learning to outline. Because questioning is such a
widely used communication technique in the classroom, it follows that teachers should
maximize the usefulness of questioning so that it improves other cognitive skills and processes
as well. As with using reflective questions, we strongly recommend that you write out in
advance questions that have multiple responses. By composing them ahead of time, you can
phrase them in a manner that is clear and understandable for all students (Kindem 2006).
Writing divergent, evaluative, reflective, and multiple-response questions helps you, as teacher,
master the techniques.

The multiple-response strategy allows for longer student responses,
greater depth in student statements, and greater challenges for all
students. It is a logical precursor to student-conducted discussions.
Student discussions are extremely difficult to conduct effectively
because many students do not demonstrate the behaviors or skills
needed. By using multiple-response questions, you can subtly
condition students to accept more responsibility for listening to one
another and to modify their responses based on previous ones,
paving the way for student-led
discussion. We recommend, however, that such discussions be
postponed until the multiple-response technique is mastered by
teachers and students alike.

Conducting Review Sessions
How can you review previously taught concepts using questioning strategies? One successful
method is to reintroduce previously discussed concepts in the context of newly presented
material. For example, if you are teaching a unit on transportation and you wish to review the
topic of railroads, which has already been covered, you could compare the placement of
airports and bus stations with that of railroad stations as part of a discussion on transportation
infrastructures. Through questioning, you could elicit from students the fact that most railroad
terminals, like airports, were initially built at the edges of cities. Students would then have the
opportunity to demonstrate their comprehension of city growth, noting that transportation
terminals became engulfed as cities expanded and that this, in turn, caused a set of problems
unique to cities and the transportation industry.

What we are suggesting, as a viable alternative to separate, discrete review sessions, is
continual review. Such review may be conducted at any level of Bloom’s taxonomy. As students
begin to relate previously learned skills or concepts to new ones, they may begin to perceive the
relationships between old and new material. If you wish to use the true basic liberal arts
approach, then you should relate the ideas of one discipline to those of other disciplines. But
instead of telling students about subtle interdisciplinary relationships, you can direct them to
the library or the Internet so that they may discover them on their own and report them to the
class. This is particularly useful for those students who are always finished with their work and
have “nothing to do”—except disrupt the class.
To use the concept review questioning technique, you must always be on the alert for instances
that will allow you to establish meaningful relationships, reinforce previously learned concepts,
or synthesize students’ knowledge, and thereby create added motivation for the class. More
importantly, you will be using the technique of “ideational scaffolding,” or “bridging,” that
is, diagramming a concept map on the chalkboard and showing how other ideas or concepts are
related to it.

Encouraging Non volunteers
In most situations, you will not have much problem encouraging students to respond to
questions. To be sure, if you kept careful records of which students respond to questions,
you would find that a few students dominate recitation sessions. Furthermore,
observation of any class tends to show that there are several students who do not
volunteer responses, often because the teacher calls on students who are quick to
respond. If your goal is to encourage verbal responses, then you must encourage non
volunteers to respond. Such encouragement
is most difficult at the beginning of a new term, when you are relatively new to the
students. As you become more knowledgeable about your students’ interests, it becomes
easier to prompt non volunteers because you can ask questions that reflect their
individual areas of interest. What, then, are some helpful strategies to motivate non
volunteers to respond during questioning sessions?

1. Maintain a highly positive attitude toward non volunteering students. Allow them to
respond appropriately or correctly each time they are called on. In other words, ask non
volunteers questions that they will be likely to answer successfully. Once the student has
responded appropriately, give generous positive feedback to encourage him or her to
continue responding. Ask questions that require short responses but lead to other questions
that require longer responses. Thus you will progress from a convergent frame of reference
to a more divergent one. You may even begin by using easy evaluative questions because
most students respond readily to questions that concern judgment, standards, or opinions.
2. Attempt to determine why each non volunteer remains quiet. Is the student merely shy, or is
there a language disability? We do not mean that you should play the role of an amateur
psychologist, but you should determine whether a specific student manifests a speech
deficit and, if necessary, make an appropriate referral.

3. Occasionally make a game out of questioning. For example, place
each student’s name on a card and draw cards at random to select
respondents. Or, if certain students always raise their hands when
you ask a question, you can politely ask these students to “hold all
hands for the next three minutes” so that other students have an
opportunity to respond. In this way you can shape the behavior of
those students who are already adequately reinforced through verbal
participation to allow other students to respond.
4. There is nothing wrong with giving each non volunteering student
a card with a question on it the day before the intended oral
recitation period. Quietly hand these students their cards and tell
them they may review the assignment so that they can summarize
their responses for the next class period. This method begins to build
a trusting relationship between
teacher and student.

Implicit in this technique is the task of systematically recording who is volunteering
responses in class recitations, and in what class situations. If time permits, it would
even be desirable to keep a daily record of each student’s verbal activity. You could
appoint one member of the class to keep such a tally each day. At the end of a week,
you will begin to see patterns for each student.
Calling on nonvolunteers should never be a punishment. Schooling ought to be a
positive, enjoyable experience that makes students want to learn. As a general rule, the
most effective way to encourage nonvolunteers to participate is to treat each student
sincerely and as a human being. Many nonvolunteers have learned—sometimes
painfully—that it does not pay to say anything in class because the teacher will put
them down or make a joke at their expense. Be considerate and encouraging at all
times.

Developing Students’ Questioning Skills
The techniques discussed so far all are oriented toward improving your questioning skills. But
there is great value in attempting to teach students how to frame their own questions.
For the most part, unfortunately, teachers neither encourage nor teach their students to ask
questions. Some teachers are even upset when students do ask questions (see Commeyras
1995). However, if you, as an educator, desire to encourage critical or reflective thinking, or
thinking of any sort, then you must develop your students’ skill at framing questions (Ciardiello
1993).
One technique is to play a game of Twenty Questions. In Twenty Questions, participants ask
questions in order to identify something. The teacher thinks of some problem, concept, place,
or historical figure, and students attempt to discover it through questioning. For example (if it is
a place), “Does it still exist under its original name?” “Does it have a democratic form of
government?” The teacher can respond with only yes or no answers. Initially you will
conduct the session, but as students master the technique and develop their questioning skills,
you can let them conduct the entire session. This will leave
you free to analyze their interactions.

Another technique is to demonstrate some phenomenon and have the students raise questions
about what is happening. Here the teacher plays a passive role while the students actively
generate questions that the teacher must answer. For example, when teaching about the
transfer of energy, a teacher might have a tray of marbles in a row. The teacher rolls one marble
into the rest, and only one marble rolls from the other end. Students begin asking the teacher
about possible explanations. The teacher provides only a yes or no response to each question.
This technique causes other students to continue asking questions until the concept of
momentum and transfer of energy has been correctly described by the students (see
Suchmann’s classic, 1966).
When this technique is first used, students tend not to ask the teacher logical questions because
much of schooling requires little logic, causing initial results to be discouraging. However, the
teacher should review each lesson and then give students precise and detailed directions on
how to improve their questioning logic. As one alternative, if it will not be too slow, the teacher
may write each student’s question on a chalkboard or transparency. This
will allow students to accumulate information and skills gradually and in a
systematic manner.

Of course, to develop effective questioning skills, it is imperative that
students have the ability to formulate questions that address a specific point,
not some vague one. The teacher can demonstrate how to develop this
ability by moving from a general point of reference to a specific one. (In other
words, use a deductive logic questioning process, and encourage students to
do the same.)
A third method of developing students’ questioning skills is to have them
prepare study or recitation questions ahead of time about the subject being
studied. Select a few students each day to prepare a series of questions for
their peers. You might even share with students a few of the questioning
techniques discussed here, such as following Bloom’s taxonomy. To be sure,
most students will be oriented only toward their knowledge level because
that is what is reinforced the most in their schooling. But a skillful teacher will
continually reinforce those questions that are aimed at higher level thinking
skills and will ultimately help students prepare appropriate higher-level
questions.

As you begin to encourage class members to ask questions of one another, you will see a subtle
shift of responsibility away from the teacher and toward the students (Rallis et al. 1995). This
shift implies that responsibility is a learned behavior. As a teacher, you owe it to your students
to help them become articulate and thinking individuals. You have a splendid opportunity to do
so when you transfer more responsibility for classroom questioning to them (see Richetti &
Sheerin 1999). Additionally, you will be creating the conditions necessary for student-initiated
learning (Callison 1997; Commeyras & Sumner 1996). After conducting extensive research,
Cynthia T. Richetti and Benjamin B. Tregoe (2001) identified five reasons why students should
develop their own questions. These reasons are listed in the following box.
Reasons to Develop Student Questioning
 Increases motivation to learn.
 Improves comprehension and retention.
 Encourages creativity and innovation.
 Teaches how to think and learn.
 Provides a basis for problem solving and decision making.

Like all new methods, this one must be explained carefully to students
and then practiced for a few class periods. Then, once a week or more
often, students can conduct questioning sessions on their own. This
method is a prerequisite experience to student-led discussions. If you
teach children with learning disabilities or exceptional children, they can
display their responses
(and questions) on cards (Heward 1996).
A novel technique for creating a more interactive questioning session is to
have the students question the author of the texts they have read for
class. Isabel L. Beck and Margaret McKeown (2002) illustrate how you can
encourage students to do this, just as if the author of the text were
standing in the classroom. Students are shown how to initiate queries in
three forms:
1. What is the author trying to say?
2. What did the author say to make you think that?
3. What do you think the author means?
These queries are then followed with other student questions as they
construct the author’s meaning (see Kucan & Beck 1997). This technique
is handy when you study complex topics or when the textbook is difficult
to comprehend.

You and the class may generate a set of criteria on which to base student framed questions. The
criteria may also be applied to a broader context. Students can be requested to evaluate the
kinds of questions that are asked on various television quiz shows as a means of improving their
own skills in data collection and interpretation.
Think-Pair-Share Let us close this section with one more student-oriented method of
encouraging students to respond to teacher questions. Frank Lyman (1981) described this
method as having three steps:
Step 1: Think. You ask a question to the whole class and allow them a short time to “think”
about the response.
Step 2: Pair. Designate partners (desk mates, buddies) to pair up and discuss the best answers,
or even the most novel possibilities. In some cases you could even have them write their team
responses.
Step 3: Share. You now call on the pairs to share their thinking with the class. Responses can be
recorded on the chalkboard.

The Think-Pair-Share method is another means by which ELL students or those with special
needs can participate meaningfully in the recitation session. Also keep in mind that assistive
technology is available to aid handicapped students. We encourage you to check on these
technologies with your principal.
All the teachers we have worked with have been pleased with the results of the techniques
described here. More important, they were amazed at how much they had underestimated
their students’ potential. We are not suggesting that these techniques are simple to implement;
they take much work and planning. But the attendant rewards make both teaching and learning
more worthwhile.

Common
Challenges of
Questioning

Avoiding Teacher Idiosyncrasies
Up to this point, we have been discussing only those teacher behaviors associated with
questioning that are positive and encouraging. We hope we haven’t made you think that you
need only a few tricks and a smile to achieve instant success. Unfortunately, inappropriate
teacher behaviors specific to each teacher can interfere with smooth verbal interaction in the
classroom. These behaviors, or idiosyncrasies, include repeating the question, repeating all
student responses, answering the question yourself, not allowing a student to complete a long
response, not attending to the responding student, and always selecting the same student
respondents. How and why to avoid these pitfalls are discussed next.

Repeating the question. This habit conditions students to catch the
“replay” of the question instead of attending to it the first time, either
cognitively or intuitively. It also causes a loss of valuable time and does
not help the teacher efficiently manage the classroom. Repeating a
question is sometimes appropriate: when the class is in a very large room
with poor acoustics, when the question is multifaceted, when the
question was not adequately framed the first time (often a difficulty for
beginning teachers), or when the question is being dictated for the class
to write down. In most cases, though, avoid repeating a question.
Repeating students’ responses. An equally distracting and time-wasting
habit is repeating all or nearly all of your students’ verbal responses. If
you are sensitive to the need to build positive student self-images, you
will not want to be the center of verbal interaction: You will keep the
focus on the responding student. After all, if it is important to call on a
student and require a response, then it ought to be equally important to
listen to that response.
Make an exception for large-group sessions held in rooms with poor
seating arrangements and for students with very soft voices. But if
students are to develop prediscussion behaviors, then they must learn to
take cues from one another.

Answering the question yourself. Have you ever observed or participated in a
class in which the teacher carefully framed a question, paused, called on a
student, and then answered the question him- or herself? This idiosyncrasy
deflates student morale.
Not allowing a student to complete a long response. One very distracting,
inappropriate, and rude teacher idiosyncrasy is to ask a question and then
interrupt the student by completing the response or by adding personal
comments. Such interruptions discourage participation and do not allow
students to develop logical response systems.
Not attending to the responding student. When you call on a student, show that
you are attending to (that is, listening to) him or her. You must model good
listening habits for your students.
Exhibiting favoritism. One frequently heard student complaint is that “my
teacher never calls on me” or that “the teacher has a few pets who are always
being called on.” These statements typify the frustrations of students who
recognize partiality when they see it.

Many teachers exhibit strong biases against
students who are struggling academically. The
box below lists a few of the intentionally
disinviting teacher behaviors exhibited toward
these students. It is tempting to call on students
who often volunteer and who will give you the
“right” answer, so that you will appear to be an
effective teacher. But if you wish to encourage
all of your students to be winners, then you
must accord them an equal opportunity to
respond. A quick way to determine whether you
show bias is to ask a different student each day
to list the number of times that you call on each
student. A quick tally at the end of the week will
provide the data you need. If students are
hesitant about responding, then you must gear
your questions to their needs and abilities so
that they too can enjoy the feeling of success
and positive reinforcement.

How Teachers Treat Low Achievers
 Giving them less time to answer a question.
 Giving them answers, or calling on others rather than trying to improve the low achievers’
responses by giving clues or repeating or rephrasing questions.
 Reinforcing inappropriately by rewarding their inappropriate behavior or incorrect answers.
 Criticizing them more often for failure.
 Praising them for success less frequently than high achievers.
 Failing to give feedback to their public responses.
 Paying less attention to them or interacting with them less frequently.
 Calling on them less often to respond to questions or asking them easier, nonanalytical
questions.
 Seating them at a distance from the teacher.
 Using less eye contact and other nonverbal means of communicating attention and
responsiveness (such as leaning forward and nodding) in interactions with them.

Teaching strategies

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